FANTASTIC FOUR #294 & #295

"HERO WORSHIP" | “WELCOME TO THE FUTURE!"
Plotter: John Byrne (#294) | Scripter: Roger Stern | Penciler: Jerry Ordway
Inker: Al Gordon | Letterer: John Workman | Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter
Special Thanks to John Byrne (#295)

The Plot: (Issue 294) Inside the futuristic upper Central City within the black dome, the Fantastic Four and Wyatt are assaulted and soon defeated by misshapen mutants. The creatures’ priestess recognizes them, however, and brings them before the city’s Coordinator, Harvey Jessup. The FF learn that Jessup constructed the black barrier as a way to protect Central City from nuclear holocaust, but where his intention was to isolate the city while time passed much faster outside, the opposite occurred.

But Jessup, now an old man brought in and out of suspended animation for certain important situations, refuses to believe Reed and attacks the FF with his “ultimate adjudicator” helmet.

(Issue 295) Sue saves the FF from the ultimate adjudicator by using her power to slowly turn them invisible, making it appear they’ve been disintegrated. The group soon encounters a woman named Murna, once the city’s high priestess. She reveals She-Hulk is beneath the city in suspended animation. While Johnny, Wyatt, and Murna go to save She-Hulk, Reed and Sue go after Jessup.

She-Hulk is freed and the two groups reunite as Sue and Reed battle Jessup’s minions. Murna links Reed’s and Jessup’s minds and Jessup finally realizes the truth of his mistake. As he dies, he places Murna, his daughter, in command of the city. Reed then uses Jessup’s device to shunt the dome 10,000 years into the future, even as the FF rescue all the original citizens of Central City, hidden underground in suspended animation.

Once more in the real world, Reed realizes Jessup’s lying to his subjects were not all that different from Reed withholding the truth from Ben about the nature of his transformation. Now aware that the Thing is out there somewhere, injured, Reed makes plans to go find him.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: In issue 294, Sue conveniently forgets everything that happened to the FF over the past, oh, ten minutes, and asks Wyatt to explain it all to her. The recap is much less painful in issue 295, where an omniscient narrator simply describes the past couple installments’ events on the first page before jumping into the action.

Jessup’s mutants are all genetically altered to be bizarre representations of the Fantastic Four, and his “Things” wear helmets of the type Ben used in early FF issues (and more recently in Byrne’s FANTASTIC FOUR #239).

FANTASTIC FOUR #293

"CENTRAL CITY DOES NOT ANSWER!"
Writer/Penciler: John Byrne | Inker: Al Gordon
Letterer: John Workman | Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Mike Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Wyatt Wingfoot receives a call from She-Hulk informing him that Reed Richards’ hometown of Cental City, California has vanished into a giant black dome. Wyatt fetches the rest of the Fantastic Four and they depart for the city.

Meanwhile, She-Hulk and the West Coast Avengers investigate the dome. Iron Man assembles a device which allows him entrance, but when he emerges after less than a second, he claims that he was inside for three weeks. Wonder Man takes Iron Man back to WCA headquarters to recharge, leaving She-Hulk and Tigra behind to watch as the dome begins growing. It quickly swallows She-Hulk.

The FF and Wyatt arrives and Tigra informs them of the situation. Wasting no time, the team enters the dome to find Central City has been built upward into a futuristic metropolis apparently devoid of inhabitants. As they explore, the FF are startled to come across replicas of the Baxter Building and a large statue devoted to them.

FANTASTIC FOUR #292

"THE MAN WHO DREAMED THE WORLD!"
Writer/Penciler: John Byrne | Inker: Al Gordon
Colorist: Glynis Oliver | Letterer: John Workman
Editor: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The Invisible Woman, She-Hulk, Human Torch, and “Licorice” Calhoun fly to Berlin, intent on stopping Nick Fury from assassinating Adolf Hitler. Meanwhile, Fury sneaks into Hitler’s sanctum and attacks the dictator, but is taken out by his guards. The Fantastic Trio arrives soon after and battles a giant Nazi robot, then Sue goes in search of Fury.

She finds him under interrogation and frees him. They're making their way out of the room, Sue having convinced Fury not to kill Hitler, when the Führer draws a gun. Fury whirls and shoots him.

Then, suddenly, Fury and the others awaken in a modern day SHIELD facility with Mister Fantastic watching over them. Reed explains that Licorice is a mutant and has been in a coma for fifty years. In his dreams, his power recently began creating brief time warps, one of which sucked in the FF members and Fury when She-Hulk rescued him from being killed in 1936. Licorice’s survival resulted in no more time warps, but also trapped the group in his dream with him. Fury’s killing Hitler finally jolted them free.

FANTASTIC FOUR #291

"THE TIMES THEY ARE A'CHANGING!"
Writer/Penciler: John Byrne | Inker: P. Craig Russell
Colorist: Glynis Oliver | Letterer: John Workman
Editor: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Nick Fury, She-Hulk, the Human Torch and the Invisible Woman land in an alley in 1936 Manhattan. Cloaking Fury’s car to resemble a delivery truck, they head out into the city to investigate but police attempt to pull them over. Fury eludes the cops and the group suddenly finds New York returned to normal. Johnny departs in a hurry to check on Alicia, but while he's with her the time warp occurs once more.

Meanwhile, Fury has crashed his car in an attempt to enter SHIELD Central via a holographic wall which is actually just a wall in 1936. Sue leaves Fury with She-Hulk and heads out to look for help. Meanwhile, She-Hulk speaks to the SHIELD space platform via Fury’s communicator and learns the time warp is localized. She ends the call to save a clarinetist named “Licorice” Calhoun from a group of hoods.

Licorice babbles to She-Hulk about his dreams, which often come true, and how his boss tried to force him to dream a racehorse to victory. But while he speaks, Fury comes around and learns that the localized time warp has expanded across the world. He immediately takes off in his flying car to assassinate Hitler in Germany just as Sue returns.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Johhny declares that with Reed dead, Sue is now the leader of the Fantastic Four.

FANTASTIC FOUR #289

"RIP WIDE THE SKY!"
Writer/Penciler: John Byrne | Inker: Al Gordon
Colorist: Glynis Oliver | Letterer: John Workman
Editor: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

(Credits as printed in the issue:
A Byrne-Gordon-Workman-Oliver-Carlin-Shooter Production)

The Plot: The Fantastic Four embark on a tour of their new headquarters as its construction nears completion. But before the tour is finished, they receive an emergency call from SHIELD and head up to the SHIELD space platform. There, Nick Fury reveals that a “rip” in space has appeared over Earth, and Reed deduces it is a portal to the Negative Zone, torn open when the Baxter Building exploded in orbit months earlier.

Reed heads out in a spacesuit to investigate but is sucked into the Zone by a tractor beam. The rest of the FF and Nick Fury follow in a SHIELD shuttle, to find Reed a captive of the Fantastic Four’s old enemy Blastaar. The group makes quick work of Blastaar, snagging the Cosmic Control Rod from his collar. But the villain tricks the Human Torch into tossing the Rod into a cell which holds its true owner, Annihilus. The insectoid warlord is reinvigorated by his long-lost weapon and quickly defeats Blastaar and the FF.

In the positive universe, SHIELD realizes that the Negative Zone portal is widening and within five hours it will consume and destroy the Earth.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Sue's new hairdo (and the final style she will wear in Byrne's run) makes its debut. I think it suits her. It's not my favorite look for her since Byrne came on board; for that we would look to the long hair she sported during the big Doom/Tyros fight circa issue 260, but it's not bad.

FANTASTIC FOUR #285

"HERO"
Written and Penciled by John Byrne | Inked by Al Gordon
Colored by Glynis Oliver | Lettered by John Workman
Edited by: Michael Carlin | Supervised by Jim Shooter

The Plot: Tommy Hanson, a thirteen year-old boy and the Human Torch’s biggest fan, has a bad day and goes home, where he lights himself ablaze using an eccentric neighbor’s radio controlled airplane fuel.

A month later, Doctor Janet Darling of the South Queens Hospital For Sick Children seeks out Johnny Storm and asks him to visit Tommy. Johnny agrees and arrives just as Tommy passes away. His final words are to tell the Torch that he lit himself on fire to emulate his hero.

Johnny returns to his apartment and tells Sue, Alicia, and She-Hulk that he plans to give up being the Human Torch. But the Beyonder appears and takes Johnny on a tour of Tommy’s past, showing him that the Torch and his exploits meant the world to Tommy. Johnny decides to remain the Torch after all.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Byrne plays up the Fantastic Four’s celebrity a bit this issue, featuring a Human Torch interview in an issue of –errm— Celebrity magazine, and showing a TV Guide listing for an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous spotlighting the team.

The FF are still living at Avengers’ Mansion following the destruction of the Baxter Building back in issue 279. Construction of their new headquarters is underway, a building which Reed declares will be three times as tall as the Baxter Building and feature a basement complex three times deeper.

FANTASTIC FOUR #284

"REVOLUTION!"
Artist/Writer: John Byrne | Letterer: John Workman | Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Edits: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter
And welcome back to Al Gordon, Inker

The Plot: She-Hulk toils as a slave in the mines of Nuvidia, her will sapped by Psycho-Man. She meets Pearla, former queen of Nuvidia, who explains how Psycho-Man came to rule her land. When a guard comes across the pair and wounds Pearla, She-Hulk snaps out of her fearful state and fights back.

Meanwhile, Psycho-Man escapes the Fantastic Four’s custody and the remaining trio splits up to find him. When Reed begins to doubt himself, Sue realizes Psycho-Man is nearby. Using her power of invisibility, she gets the drop on him and takes his emotion control box, which she then uses on him.

Johnny runs across She-Hulk and Pearla and the FF are reunited. With Psycho-Man defeated, Pearla reclaims her throne. In the aftermath of the conflict, Sue declares that the Invisible Girl is no more — she will now be known as the Invisible Woman.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: First and foremost, this issue marks a major (and long overdue) update to Susan Richards: she adopts the codename “Invisible Woman” to reflect the experience and maturity she’s gained since becoming an adventurer years earlier.

FANTASTIC FOUR #275

"THE NAKED TRUTH"
Writer & Penciler: John Byrne | Guest Inker: Al Gordon
Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Jim Novak
Editor: Michael Carlin | Truthsayer: Jim Shooter
A special tip of the hat to Kevin Nowlan for the inspiration for this story.

The Plot: As She-Hulk sunbathes atop the Baxter Building, a helicopter buzzes her and the men aboard grab a few snapshots of her topless. After putting her top back on, she leaps to the chopper and punches a hole in its underside, but is shaken loose. Recognizing the call letters WXIT on the helicpter’s side, She-Hulk calls the station and gets the pilot’s name and location.

Confronting the pilot at an airfield with Wyatt by her side, She-Hulk learns that he was paid $1,000 by the publisher of a nudie magazine called The Naked Truth in order to help get the photos. She-Hulk changes to Jennifer Walters and, along with Wyatt, confronts the magazine’s publisher, T.J. Vance, at his sleazy office. Vance brags that the photos have already been sent off to appear in the next edition of The Naked Truth and that the magazine is expected to sell thirty times more copies than ever before. He shows off a safe containing advance payments he’s received from news agents, and Jen changes to She-Hulk, crumples the safe into an impenetrable ball, and leaves.

Three weeks later, the magazine hits the stands. The Human Torch arrives and tells She-Hulk that the printer color-corrected the “green woman” in Vance’s photospread, and She-Hulk is relieved to realize no one will be able to tell the photos are of her.

MARVEL TEAM-UP #75

Stan Lee presents SPIDEY and POWER MAN -- together!

”THE SMOKE OF THAT GREAT BURNING!”
Plot: Chris Claremont | Script: Ralph Macchio | Pencils: John Byrne
Inks: Al Gordon | Letters: Tom Orzechowski | Colors: Michele Wolfman
Editor: Bob Hall | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Trapped in a burning tenement, Spider-Man passes out from smoke inhalation and flashes back to how he wound up there: As Peter Parker, he attended the opening of a new disco, Studio 13, with Mary Jane Watson, but the place was raided by a gang called the Rat Pack. Luke Cage, also in attendance, fought back against the gang as Peter changed into Spider-Man. But the Rat Pack took a girl hostage and escaped. Cage knew where to find their hideout in the Bronx however, and led Spider-Man there. The heroes attacked the Rat Pack and in the ensuing scuffle a fire started.

Back in the present, Cage rescues Spider-Man from the flames, then the two heroes team up with the New York Fire Department to rescue civilians. Spider-Man saves a firefighter trapped in a cherry picker and lowers him to the ground, but, still weakened, gets caught on the roof of the building with the fire chief. Meanwhile, the other firefighters tell Cage he must bring the burning building down in order to save the block. Cage does so, knowing he will kill Spider-Man and the chief in the process, but the web-slinger regains his strength and gets both of them to safety.

Later, the firefighter Spider-Man rescued from the cherry picker is rushed to the hospital with third degree burns, while Spider-Man and Cage marvel at the courage of the New York Fire Department.

TALES OF THE THE TEEN TITANS #48 & #49

"THE RECOMBATANTS!"
Co-Creators/Co-Editors: Marv Wolfman & George Pérez | Writer: Marv Wolfman
Guest Penciler: Steve Rude | Guest Inker: Al Gordon
Penciler (epilogues): George Pérez | Inker (epilogues): Mike DeCarlo
Letterer: Todd Klein | Letterer (epilogues): Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy

The Plot: A group of genetically engineered artificial teenagers named the Recombatants escape from a Dayton Industries facility near Las Vegas. In New York, Cyborg mulls over some new procedure S.T.A.R. Labs is developing which could change his life, but is soon summoned to Titans' Tower.

Nightwing, Starfire, Cyborg, Wonder Girl, and Jericho head to Nevada to round the Recombatants up. The Titans bring the Recombatants back to the lab, where the scientists who created them explain their intention to destroy these "prototypes". The Recombatants make a run for it and the Titans pursue, but the teenagers choose to take their own lives, destroying the power core that would have allowed the Dayton scientists to create more Recombatants, in the process.

Back in New York, Changeling shows Jillian around Dayton Manor and is reprimanded by his stepfather over his offering Donna and Terry the use of the house for their wedding. Meanwhile, Terry receives word that his ex-wife wants to speak with him and worries about her intentions. At Titans' Tower, Jericho attempts to visit Raven but she forces him to leave.

PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #44

"THE VENGEANCE GAMBIT"
Writer/Co-Plotter: Marv Wolfman | Layouts/Co-Plotter: Steve Leialoha
Finished Art: Al Gordon | Letterer: Michael Higgins | Colorist: Ben Sean
Editor: Dennis O'Neil | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: As he swings through the city on a cold winter's night, Spider-Man spots a funeral procession. He snaps some pictures and moves on, as the procession arrives at a church. The attendees are all gangsters looking to take over New York's underworld, and have gathered to pay their respects to one of their own, Big Louie. The funeral is presided over by Malachai Toomes, who announces that his uncle has the firmest grasp on the underworld, but he will allow the assembled gangsters to serve him if they will each procure for him a valuable item of his choosing.

The next day, a mobster named Harry Dolenz attempts to steal a jade statue at a Chinese New Year's parade in Chinatown, but is gunned down by men working for his rival, Black Alfred. Peter Parker, covering the parade for the Daily Globe, inadvertently winds up with the killing captured on film. When he realizes this the next day, Peter vows to solve the murder. Later, Black Alfred murders another of his rivals, Mancini, at an elevated train track, while at the same time, Spider-Man shakes down some hoods elsewhere in the city and learns that Dolenz's body was taken to the Taylor Building. The wall-crawler pulls records on the building, learning that it is owned by Malachai Toomes, and that Toomes is the nephew of one of his oldest enemies.